Efficient city – MASDAR – automobiles will be banned !!!

That’s cool. The project is headed by the Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company (ADFEC). Initiated in 2006, the project is estimated to cost US$22 billion and take some eight years to build, with the first phase scheduled to be complete and habitable in 2009. That’s pretty soon.

The city will cover 6 square kilometres (2.3 sq mi) on a site 6.4 km² (2.5 sq mi) in size and will be home to 50,000 people and 1,500 businesses, primarily commercial and manufacturing facilities specialising in environmentally-friendly products, and an expected 40,000 workers will commute to the city daily.

It will also be the location of a university, the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology (MIST), which will be assisted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Automobiles will be banned within the city; travel will be accomplished via public mass transit and personal rapid transit systems, with existing road- and railways connecting to other locations outside the city.

They’ve put down $2 billion to start their very own solar industry operating under the name of Masdar PV and concentrating on thin-film photovoltaics, which they will build in Germany and in-country. These thin-films will be mounted on rooftops to harness their abundance of solar energy to the projected tune of 130 megawatts.

Notable partners in the project through its Clean Tech Fund include General Electric, BP, Royal Dutch Shell, Mitsubishi, Rolls-Royce, Total S.A., Mitsui and Fiat. Construction of the first phase of the project is being managed by CH2M HILL and design of the central Masdar headquarters building has been awarded to Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture.